Survival Thread: First in a Series - Niedermeyer's Dead Horse

There isn't a week that goes by in which I don't wonder at the wealth of information available to us. Google, Bing, and Wiki.. all available at the touch. Yet, of all the resources available to us, it's You Tube that I find the most incredible and astonishing.

Want to know how to repair a broken lamp? You Tube!

How to switch out an electrical outlet? You Tube!

Need to rebuild a carburetor? You Tube!

There's virtually nothing you can't find there and, among the most useful (and fascinating) of all the instructional videos that can be found there, are those pertaining to survival.

I am no survival geek, but find myself perusing the videos and picking up tips, just in case. Besides the actual survival tips themselves, there's something else I've learned along the way: There is no single "survival" scenario and the need to survive your circumstances is rarely brought about instantaneously and out of the blue. Usually, when someone finds himself/herself in a survival situation, it is because of a series of unfortunate occurrences or, more likely, a series of bad decisions:

Hiking into the desert with only your Go Pro and a single bottle of water

Staying behind in a hurricane to fight off potential looters once the storm has passed

None of these are good ideas.

That said, when you find yourself in a survival situation, it matters not whether it's due to a sudden shift in your environment or due to your own lousy decision making. The only thing that matters is getting through it and back into the arms of your loved ones.

As material for a series of posts, the topics/sub-topics are almost endless and, being that I am no expert (not by a mile) I will be learning from the research as we go along. Those of you who do possess something approaching real skills in these areas are encouraged to pipe in and let me know if I've shared outdated or disproven theories.

For this first post, we'll just touch on the subject. Find, below, a couple of examples of recent survival stories. Let's see if you can guess whether man or nature is responsible for each.

Michigan man survives seven hours in the Atlantic, swims to Puerto Rico

Man Survives Buffalo Attack

Next week, we'll get into the meat of it.

Until then, stay safe out there!

(Open thread is permitted, but nastiness will be dealt with abruptly and decisively.)

posted by Open Blogger at 05:52 PM

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